Missing student believed dead

DOVER, N.H. (AP) -- A 19-year-old University of New Hampshire student who disappeared this week is dead, authorities said Saturday, and a man was charged with second-degree murder in the case.

Elizabeth "Lizzi" Marriott had attended a class Tuesday night and made plans to visit friends in Dover. Her cellphone was last used in Dover that night, according to fliers that family members posted, but authorities said her car was found several miles away in a parking lot on campus in Durham.

Authorities believe she is dead but have not found her body, Assistant Attorney General James Vara said Saturday at a news conference. He did not say how she died.

Seth Mazzaglia, 29, of Dover, was arrested and charged in her death. Vara didn’t say whether Mazzaglia knew Marriott or what led to his arrest. Vara said the investigation was continuing.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said she did not know whether Mazzaglia had an attorney yet but one would be appointed before his arraignment Monday.

Lizzi Marriott’s grandmother, Susan Marriott, was tending the phone at the Chester home where her granddaughter lives on Friday while other family members were out handing out fliers and searching for her.

"She is a good student and she’s hard-working," her grandmother said. "She is a person that doesn’t have a multitude of friends but she has good friends, a small group of good friends.

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She said the FBI and other investigators were at the house for much of the day interviewing family members. Authorities had been searching Peirce Island in Portsmouth, on the New Hampshire coast about 12 miles southeast of Dover, since Friday night, but would not say whether the search was related to Marriott.

Marriott was a 2011 graduate of Westborough High School in Massachusetts. She lived with an aunt in Chester and commuted to the Durham campus.

A message seeking comment was left with Marriott’s parents, Robert and Melissa Marriott of Westborough, Mass.

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